Our Steady Climb To European-Style Debt Catastrophe

Under the Maastricht Treaty, leading to the European monetary union, budget deficits were limited to to 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) and total debt was restricted to 60% of GDP. However,Greece consistently cheated. France and Germany and others also broke the Treaty agreement in this regard.

                   

Ben Bernanke, the head of the Federal Reserve Bank in the U. S., has said that total debt of 2% and 3% of gross domestic product (GDP) is sustainable, though we are now past that level. (The extraordinary Fannie Mae and Freddie Mae debt are not even in the federal budget.)

So why are we not headed down the same road to disaster as is Europe? (See the Earl J. Weinreb NewsHole® comments and @BusinessNewshole at Twitter.)